To make the situation more complex, as Danny Vinik of the New Republic notes, the magazine's criteria for making the list excluded Yellen not because she's a woman, but "by excluding all 'serving central-bank governors.' " However, he adds, that didn't stop them from including "five key members of the Federal Reserve," such as the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. It is odd that the criteria was somehow just broad enough to include these men but just narrow enough to exclude Yellen. As Ben Casselman of FiveThirtyEight writes, "There aren’t many contexts in which Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser is more influential than Yellen."

The methodology wasn't just a blunder when it comes to Yellen, either. "Or take No. 25," Casselman writes, "San Francisco Fed President John Williams, an undeniably important economist but one who apparently scored higher because The Economist’s algorithm mixed him up with a discreditedconspiracy theorist who happens to share his name."

Economics isn't the sexiest of topics, so I understand the Economist's urge to mix it up a little by injecting some Twitter trendiness and trafficking in outrage. But this experiment was a failure. Hopefully, next year influence will be measured in terms of actual impact that people have on the world, a measure that would certainly include Janet Yellen.